Capistrano Unified “reform” movement leader Tony Beall, left, high-fives his wife, Jennifer, as they celebrate the campaign’s election victory in a June 2008 recall race. Critics say recent Capistrano school board races have become so high-profile and so well-funded that it’s now prohibitively expensive and daunting for candidates to enter the fray.

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – A group of Capistrano Unifiedparents has submitted about 1,200 petition signatures to the Orange County Department of Education in an effort to change the way the school district’s seven trustees are elected.

Under the proposed change, voters would elect a single trustee to represent their geographical area, instead of voting for all seven.

The change is intended to give residents a better opportunity to get to know their candidates and to encourage more individuals to run, said parent Erin Kutnick of San Juan Capistrano, who helped head up the signature gathering.

“The district is just too large and just too difficult to campaign in,” said Kutnick, who ran unsuccessfully for Capistrano Unified’s school board in November 2008. “This would break down the voting areas into much smaller pieces, so you only have to know the candidates running in your area and can make better choices about who is best to represent your schools.”

Parents submitted the 1,200 signatures of support Wednesday.

Assuming enough petition signatures are valid, an 11-member committee at the Department of Education will review the plan in the coming weeks and determine whether to let it come before voters for approval.

The parents’ group is looking at having the issue on the ballot in June 2010, Kutnick said.

HOTBED OF POLITICAL STRIFE

With about 214,000 registered voters spread out across eight South County cities and several unincorporated areas, Capistrano Unified is the second-largest school district in Orange County – and a recent hotbed of political strife.

Capistrano’s school board is made up entirely of trustees who ran on the popular “reform” platform, a parent-based political movement that has attracted hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations over the past few years, including from influential political groups outside the school district.

The “reform” movement’s simple message of change, along with its deep coffers, are credited with ousting two long-time trustees in a June 2008 recall election, plus with landslide wins for “reform” candidates in the November 2006 and November 2008 elections.

But critics say that as a consequence, it’s now necessary to run a polished, well-funded campaign in Capistrano to even have a chance at victory. Potential school board candidates must be prepared to reach out to thousands of voters across a 200-square-mile area and seek out thousands of dollars in political donations, critics say.

“Someone who is a great community person in Mission Viejo is going to find it very difficult to get to Dana Point and San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano to get their name out there, especially with the amount of money that has to be raised,” Kutnick said.

In Capistrano Unified’s hotly contested November 2008 election, for example, the race was so fierce that former Superintendent A. Woodrow Carter reportedly offered to help a school board candidate coordinate visits to all 56 of Capistrano’s campuses.

When the school board fired Carter in March, he was accused in a 54-page termination report of misusing his position of authority to illegally influence the outcome of that election. In a written rebuttal, Carter admitted to helping the candidate, but denied any wrongdoing.

“This will take a lot of review, but it’s not something we shouldn’t weigh,” Trustee Anna Bryson said at a May school board meeting. “Local representation is always the best representation. We are not a smaller entity in any sense of the word.”

Added Trustee Larry Christensen: “It seems daunting when you have to go into an area this large. It’s amazing what kind of funds it requires. It’s sad to see elections at any level that cost so much money in order to get in.”

Some trustees pointed out that before making any changes, the boundaries of the seven trustee areas should be revisited. They noted that the boundaries seem arbitrary, dividing multiple cities and communities.

If Capistrano were to elect by trustee area, it would mirror the way Orange County supervisors are elected, along with school board candidates in large districts such as Long Beach Unified and Los Angeles Unified.

The 1,200 petition signatures are being verified by the Orange County Registrar of Voters Office. If at least 750 signatures are declared valid, the parents’ proposal will be taken up by the 11-member Orange County Committee on School District Organization, a panel that includes former Capistrano Unified trustees Sheila Benecke and Sheila Henness.

About 30 parents gathered the petition signatures over a two-week period that ended Sunday, Kutnick said.

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